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This is a literature review page for investigating on Intellectual Property (IP) barriers to Photovoltaic solar cells efficiency. It would be our pleasure if you share your experience in this area with us. (Discussion tab is top left of this page)

Background

Meaning of Intellectual Property: Term of Intellectual Property (IP) refer to the rights that is given by the law to the person who create, innovate or designed a new thing. There are various types of IP such as trade market, copyright, patents, industrial design rights, all artistic works and much more. This phrase (IP) was used for the first time in 1769 but its most ever use refer to the end of 20th century till now. By this law inventors feel more secure to publish their work to the public because all benefits of that invention must refer to the inventor.Intellectual Property Wikipedia

Photovoltaic cell basic information

these parameters have effect on PV cells efficiency

Wavelength of light: solar cell cannot absorb entire spectrum of sunlight. Photons with energy below the material bandgap cannot be absorbed and photons with higher energy, will loose their extra energy as heat or light.

Recombination: produced electrons and holes will recombine before contribute in cell's current.This can be due direct recombination, which electrons and hols meet each other randomly, or indirect recombination which is due to impurities, structure defects or surface recombination.

Natural resistance: this happen in bulk material, thin surface and contact point of panel to output circuit

Temperature: Almost all solar cells lose their efficiency by growing temperature. Considering the most part of incident sunlight convert to heat in solar cell, then operating temperature would be an issue for solar cells. operating T can be considered when designing the solar cells to be a good match or somehow manage to cool the panel for higher efficiency.

Reflection: A big portion of sunlight would be reflected on the solar cell surface (30%) if find a way to reduce the reflection, it means there would be more photon available to generate more electron-hole pairs and efficiency of light increases in result. Many methods are introduced to reduce the reflection such as anti reflection coating (multi layers) and texture the top surface of solar cell.

Electrical Resistance: It is obvious that by larger electrical contact, electrical resistance would reduce but on the other hand more incident light will be blocked. It means there is a trade off between size of metal contact on the surface and electrical resistance for solar cells. Nearly, new methods are being introduced to overcome this issue like using a very thin transparent metal contact all over the solar cell surface.

In this paper is tried to find a direct relation between the crude oil price and the number of registered patents. In the graph he draw number of patent graph one year ahead (When the price of crude oil increase, more money will inject to the R&D in PV which will take time for a patent come out, in average one year)

In this paper very nicely a search strategy for relevant patent in PV is described in section 4

Two sides of IP debates, one group believe this is kind of public good and must be supported by international funds and be accessible for developing countries like as drugs for treating HIV, in contrast, the other side they argue if developing countries be more serious in protecting IPR, the transfer technology would be much easier

Those groups which consider IP as a barrier are mostly from developing countries and those groups which consider IPR as a catalyst are from developed countries. U.S only had income $20 billion in 1995 for selling technology!

In continue in this paper mentioned in most cases developing countries had access to cutting-edge technologies but there were not enough funding to buy them or having competition in the market with those big eminent companies from developed countries

In this paper tried to find out effects of IP on developing countries in three main sources of clean energy, PV, Wind and bio-mass

the conclusion in PV was: it cannot be considered as a barrier in developing countries (paper is for 2007) because there are some manufacturers which are eminent in the market which coming from developing countries such as Suntech Power Co., Ltd in 2006 it was the 4th biggest PV producer while it established in 2001, in continue he discus the main barrier would be competition in the market with those giant manufacturers who have most of the market in their control .

Innovation and international technology transfer: The case of the Chinese Photovoltaic industry

mentioned china was successful only in downstream segment of PV production (Cells and assembling modules) which has many competitions in the market and benefit is not that much, while in upstream segment(silicon purification, ingot and wafer) still developed countries have the most part of the market

China did not invest so much on R&D compared to Japan or other developed countries in PV market but managed to buy ready firms, product line and technologies in the market

FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) also is another factor which is considered in this paper for a reason of improvement, it is true but its contribution in this success is not impressive

===Placing a Glove on the Invisible Hand: How Intellectual Property Rights May Impede Innovation in Energy Research and Development (R& (and) D)===

At least there are four reasons to find out IP barriers in innovative energy technology:

(1):increasing energy demand and having fixed limited fossil fuel sources by oscillating prices
(2): IP barriers affect both old and new technologies in energy market
(3):If IP barriers truly avoiding diffusion of clean energy technology, then all attempts to promote developments in such technology would be Inconclusive till the barriers being addressed. experience from other market like, biotechnology, pharmacy and ... can be good example
(4):to be familiar with new concept of innovation. there are three eminent arena in this field, 14000 industrial R&D laboratories, 730 governmental laboratories and 1270 universities facilities, the competition between theses three groups leads to some shifting in the concept of ownership, authorship, invention and also in organization section of innovation, production and diffusion technology.

In United states IP is classified into 6 areas (there are different views for this classification):

(1):Copyright. it is normally valid for the author's lifetime plus seventy years!
(2):Patents are granted for new useful and non-obvious inventions. patents holder can has commercially use of patent for a limited time (usually 20 years). in U.s "first-to-invent" apply while in the rest of the world "first-to-file" apply.
(3,4):trademarks and industrial design, very useful in automobiles and clothing industries
(5): trade secrets
(6):Geographical

the concept of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR): place monopolized rights to particular parties avoiding others to enter to their monopoly. this right can be transferred, licensed or mortgaged to third party.

If every body freely copy the product of a industry, it is true that the consumption price would reduce but on the other hand there would be no encouragement for new investigation for new technologies, then keeping monopoly of patent seems logic for a limited period of time to keep innovation competitive sens in the market.

Structural and economic barriers related to IPR and innovation

first, high transaction cost, which consist of a series inter related expenses such as pre application patent search, review of the product patent ability, preparation of formal drawings, filing fees with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and patent attorney fees. depending type of the technology and many other cases it start from $10,000 to hundreds of thousands dollars per patent. these cost also do not include continuation maintenance and enforcement against infringement costs. After filing the patent in U.S, it will cost around $20,000 for each other country that patent protection would apply. In addition, this process may takes between 24 and 36 months.

PECVD of silicon nitride Si3N4 layers as antirefective coating

In order to absorb as much light as possible, it is necessary to minimize light reflection. This can be achieved by coating the solar cell with an antireflective layer ACR. When light waves reflected by the upper side and the lower side of the antireflection layer are interferring, then they can be cancelled. This happens, when the thickness of the anti-reflective layer is 1/4 of the wave length. Sunlight contains a broad range of different wave lengths and the angle of incidence also varies over the day. Therefore a compromis regarding the thickness of the ACR has to be found. Adaption of the refractive index of the antireflection coating can also help to optimize the layer.
In solar technology, silicon nitride Si3N4 is used as antireflection layer. This layer causes the dark blue color of crystalline silicon solar cells. Deposition is carried out plasma-enhanced in a PECVD system (plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition).
PECVD technology allows a fast deposition of the silicon nitrid layer. Edge coverage is good. Usually, silane and ammonia are used as feedstock. Deposition can take place at temperatures below 400°C.